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5 Timeless Hiring Tips for Your Small Business

As any business knows, the hiring process can be time consuming and expensive. Small businesses especially have it tough as 48 percent reported that there are few or no qualified applicants for the positions they are trying to fill. What can small businesses do to improve their hiring process and retain employees for the long run?

As a small business there are many important aspects when it comes respecting and retaining your employees. From onboarding to new hire training and engaging and developing their overall career—all of these aspects are all vital to growing and sustaining your small business in the coming years. Below are five timeless hiring tips for your small business.

Be appealing to top talent

Today we live in a day and age where the employer, not the employee, needs to be appealing. Top talent in every industry has a choice about where they want to work, so as an organization, you need to attract them for the long term. Glassdoor found that 79 percent of job seekers use social media in their job search and that 45 percent of job seekers use their mobile devices to search for jobs at least once every day—so as an organization make sure your recruiting is social and mobile friendly.

In addition, mentioning perks is a start, but as an organization, create a resume of your qualifications and why top talent should be interested in progressing their career with you as well as adding to your unique company culture. Also, keep this in mind during the interviewing process, as it can help you see how well applicants will fit within your organization.

Offering flexible work schedules

Part of being appealing to applicants and new hires means upper management giving more trust to their employees. A good starting point would be allowing flexibility when it comes to employee’s work schedules. Implementing Results Only Work Environment (ROWE) or allowing employees to telecommute instills a trusting working relationship and better yet, can increase their overall engagement and happiness within their work.

Bring employee engagement to the hiring process

Not only should the hiring and onboarding process be engaging for the new hires, but as an organization, work to incorporate and engage current employees in the recruitment process. These employees are your best brand advocates and know what new talent and skills would be vital to their established teams, plus they probably have a diverse network to pull candidates from. Consider implementing a referral program with current employees with incentives to encourage their input. Better yet, these employees should be invited to the interview process to help gauge the applicant’s fit.

Show, don’t tell when it comes to company culture

Though it may be easy to list off the perks and benefits of your company to applicants, don’t be afraid to give a small tour of the organization during the interview process. Immerse the applicant as much as possible with company culture to see if they are the right kind of addition, Explain your core mission and values and throw in some softball questions asking about their personality. Furthermore, in the long run, it’s more beneficial for organizations to take on an employee who may be lacking experience, but can add to company culture.

Don’t slack on onboarding

Lastly, a key aspect of the hiring process is your onboarding structure. This is what really determines the longevity of your new employee. So, as an organization, be sure that your new hire training, orientation and mentoring programs are in place so the employees not only feel welcomed, but excited to produce great work. Additionally, the key to any successful onboarding program is receiving feedback from current employees and looking for ways to continually improve it.

All and all, these five tips can help small businesses not only attract top talent, but find the applicants that best fit the unique small company environment.

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About Small Business Can

The idea for Small Business Can comes from an Ulster Bank initiative when we went and talked to hundreds of businesspeople and asked them about the types of business supports they most valued. The majority said that they valued the insights of other businesspeople the most. We came up with smallbusinesscan.com, a site run by businesspeople for businesspeople. Read more...